That company is Second Sight Medical Products, which this year was granted FDA approval for the Argus II retinal prosthesis system, hailed as the world’s first bionic eye. The byproduct of more than a decade of development, the system consists of a pair of glasses equipped with a video camera, a video processing unit, and a miniature implant. Placed close to the retina, the implant receives the signal from the video processor and stimulates the retina using mild electric pulses. The intent is to return a measure of vision—hence the name Second Sight—to patients who have lost their eyesight due to retinitis pigmentosa.